Parenting in a Mixed-Race Family
It’s not as unusual as you think
Parenting’s a challenge, especially when you adopt children. It’s an even bigger challenge when those children come from foreign countries.
Many years ago, over a span of seven years, my wife and I adopted three children, one from Bolivia and two from Haiti. We’re both white, and both grew up in Indiana in the 1970s. As our family grew, we brought our children home to our small town and people quickly got used to seeing us. No one said anything to us about our family, at least not directly to us.
I’m not saying everything was sunny and welcoming; I’m saying no one ever said a word to us. We learned later that someone from our church, upon hearing that we were adopting a black child, said to my mother-in-law, “And you’re okay with this?”
My mother-in-law said, “God has asked them to make a home for someone, and this is what they’ve been called to do,” which shut the other woman down.
When we went to “the big city” for dinner or a day trip, we were asked questions and received recommendations, mostly from black women, about how to care for my younger daughter’s hair. My wife learned how to braid it and did it regularly. But that didn’t stop people offering advice we never asked for. We were never sure if they were butting in because…
